Quaint Folk by Bitter Karella

Publishes 6 October 
 
Bitter Karella's Quaint Folk is a queer folk horror novel that peels back the idyllic veneer of a perfectly quaint island town to reveal the rot beneath. From the outside, it looks like Jessica has the perfect life. She's a stay-at-home mom, married to a man with a respectable job, raising a son they adore.

Her family is as wholesome as all-American pie. But deep down, Jessica knows there's something wrong with her; she knows she can't escape her past. When her husband's job has them move abroad, Jessica thinks this is her chance for a fresh start.

On the remote island of Hasenhurst, the modern world can't get in. The people there grow their own herbs, make their own jam, and mind their own business. They believe in folk tales and the power of dreams.

They tell visitors, we're a quaint, quiet people. The right sort of family would do well here. Jessica is determined to be the right kind of person for a family-and a life-like this.

But as she tries to befriend the townsfolk and learn their ways, she soon realizes that beneath the town's cosy idyll, something sickly-sweet and rotten lays buried...
 
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'To experience Bitter Karella's cheerfully unhinged fiction is to surrender to a spectacularly fierce and uncompromising literary force. Quaint Folk astonished me with its charming, mythical weirdness threaded with genuine moments of pure tenderness. A bold, potent brew of all the best elements of folk and queer horror' - Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke